ARTTalk Part 1 - Prehistoric Art Art History

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Art History

Part 1 - Prehistoric Art

Long before the now famous cave paintings were discovered in the caves of France and northern Spain, the Old Stone Age of man existed. There was little time for creation of art of quality and sophistication; survival, alone, required all the energy of man. Simple, crude tools were about the extent of his art during this period that lasted roughly four thousand years.

In 1879, a local resident and non-expert who was researching the origin of man accidentally discovered paintings in caves of northern Spain, where he had already found carved bone and flint pieces. Because of the fear that the drawings were not authentic, it wasn't until the early years of the 20th century that the drawings were deemed authentic by the experts. This was possible by the discovery of similar drawings in France by a recognized archeologist. Both caves gave us a glimpse of the intelligence, imagination, and creative power of these early humans. In these now famous drawings, early man allowed us to see back into his time. We see the animals and scenes that share his experiences, the continuing process of survival and existence. It is estimated that the drawings were created over 15,000 to 10,000 years B.C.

Two boys playing in a field discovered more caves in France as late as 1941. Their dog, following a ball, disappeared into a hole, and the boys followed the barking. They ended up in caves where, by match light, they first viewed what are today considered the most outstanding of all prehistoric art--images of cattle (with distinct shapes and horns up) and horses running alongside, all life-size.

With this art, man made a crucial breakthrough and became truly human. Through the recognition and creation of these simple images and symbols, human intellectual and imaginative processes started to function. Because the paintings were situated deep within the caves and not easily accessible, it is thought that their very location suggests strongly that these drawings were magical to the prehistoric hunter/artist. For instance, the paintings are never found in parts of the caves that were inhabited or near daylight, which rules out any decorative purposes of the work. The remoteness and difficulty of access to the sites suggest that they appear to have been used for centuries by different hunters and that early man attached mystical significance to the paintings. Because of the extreme likeness to the actual creatures this ancient hunter stalked, it is thought that the paintings also represented his control over his prey: life-sized, realistic animals.

Another element of the works is the hunter/artist's use of natural irregularities in the surface of the cave walls to create projections, recessions, and the illusion of real life in his forms. A swelling outward could better define the bulk of a beast's body. Natural rock shapes of clouds or foliage, the profile of a mountain or shapes of eroded earth, it is thought, were used to help the artist create the shapes of man, animals, and objects. These illusions of shapes helped to further the magical connection between artist and scene painted.

The use of the outline of the hunter/artist's hands is also of extreme importance. It is the closest thing to a signature offered by anyone of that time, and very few visions of man were ever included - only hand shadows. The animals were of extreme importance to early man, at least to the hunter/artist, because any drawings of man were crude, stick-like figures, compared to the life-like renderings of the animals.

Centuries after the cave paintings were created, this same reverence for secret and mystical places became a familiar part of religious architecture. Thousands of years following the paintings in the deep recesses of those French and Spanish caves, cave-like spaces were the sanctuary where the most sacred and hidden mysteries were kept and where the god dwells in silence. These features of the sacred environment were already present in the architecture of the caves, and the central theme has never been lost despite all of its variations.

It is also significant that the miracle of abstraction - the creation of images and symbols - should have taken place in just such a secretive cave. For abstraction is representation, a human device, by which not only art but also science comes into existence. Both art and science are methods for the control of human experience and power over the environment. And that, too, was the end purpose of the hunter/artist - to control the world of the beasts he hunted. Making the image itself was a form of magic, for the hunter/artist fixed and controlled the animal within an outline. From this, all the rest would follow. These drawings were also believed to enhance the hunter's luck.

Even though in his paintings Paleolithic man avoided nearly all self-involvement and always disguised himself, his art should always be thought of as art. It is not simply that he made images, but that he made them skillfully and beautifully. The art in the caves of France and Spain is extraordinary art. From the splendid horses and cattle to the bison and deer, each image is full of strength and remarkable grace.

(Look for Part 2 -- Egyptian Art in a future issue of ARTtalk.)